KATHERINE KNIGHT | THE NIGHT ABERDEEN WENT SILENT
- Aug 22
- 3 min read
Content warning: This article discusses domestic violence and murder.
Aberdeen is the kind of Australian town where familiarity can be deceptive.
People know one another.
They see the same faces at the shops, at work, at the local club.
People who knew the couple described their relationship as appearing relatively ordinary from the outside.
In February 2000, Katherine Mary Knight and John Price were known around Aberdeen as a couple.
People saw them together.
They knew Knight as a hard-working and highly skilled meatworker.
Price was known as a well-liked man who worked in the local mining industry.
To those around them, their relationship could appear ordinary.
It wasn't.
BEFORE JOHN PRICE
Knight's history with relationships was complicated and, according to the evidence considered by the Supreme Court, marked by violence.
She had married David Kellett in 1974.
Their marriage became increasingly violent, and Kellett eventually left.
Knight later formed a relationship with David Saunders.
That relationship also deteriorated.
There were allegations and evidence of violence on both sides, and the sentencing material was careful about what could and could not be established.
That distinction matters.
True crime stories can easily turn allegations into facts simply because they make a better story.
The court did not.
Knight later became involved with John Chillingworth, with whom she had a son.
Then came John Price.
The relationship began in the mid-1990s.
Price was a father and a respected member of the local community.
But behind the ordinary routines of work, neighbours and weekends at the local RSL, the relationship became increasingly troubled.
JOHN PRICE
By 1998, the relationship had deteriorated badly.
There were arguments.
There were allegations of violence.
And there were increasingly serious consequences.
Eventually Price ended the relationship and attempted to keep Knight away from him.
On 29th February 2000, Price went to the Scone Magistrate's Court and sought an apprehended violence order against Knight.
He also spoke to people at work.
He told colleagues that if he failed to turn up the following day, they should contact police.
He had effectively told people around him that he was frightened of what might happen.
He was right to be afraid.
But he still went home.
THE HOUSE IN ABERDEEN
The following morning, concern began to grow when Price failed to appear for work.
His car was still at the house.
A neighbour and a worker sent to check on him became concerned after noticing signs that something was wrong.
Police were called.
They entered the house.
And what they found became one of the most notorious murder scenes in Australian criminal history.
Knight had killed Price.
The crime that followed his death was so disturbing that it dominated the sentencing proceedings and later became central to the appeal.
But beneath the sensational headlines was something much more important.
John Price had tried to protect himself.
He had gone to court.
He had warned people at work.
He had taken steps to keep Knight away from him.
And still, he went home.
THE COURT'S DECISION
Knight ultimately pleaded guilty to murder.
The Supreme Court of New South Wales sentenced her to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
She became the first woman in Australian history to receive that penalty.
The sentencing judge regarded the circumstances as being at the very highest end of seriousness.
Knight later appealed.
In 2006, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed the appeal.
The sentence remained.
Knight remains imprisoned.
WHAT REMAINS
For decades, the case has been reduced to one shocking label after another.
"Australia's Hannibal Lecter."
"The female Hannibal Lecter."
A crime remembered primarily for what happened inside one house in Aberdeen.
But John Price was more than the victim at the centre of a notorious crime scene.
He was a father.
A worker.
A neighbour.
A man who recognised that something was wrong and tried to do something about it.
The most haunting part of this case isn't simply what happened inside that house.
It is what happened beforehand.
The arguments.
The violence.
The fear.
The warnings.
The attempt to obtain legal protection.
And the decision to go home anyway.
Because sometimes the darkest part of a case isn't the moment everything ends.
It's the period when everyone can see that something is going wrong—
and nobody knows how to stop it.
SOURCES - Katherine Knight
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